Drinking Games
by roberre
Summary: He was certain there had never before been such a waste of beauty.
1. Hogwash

**1**

"What is this?"

Lucy looks up to see Nellie standing in the doorway, an envelope clenched tightly in her raised fist.

"It's a letter," she says, trying to sound casual and unperturbed. She turns her focus back to the pile of silk on her lap and picks up her needle. It's the last silk gown Johanna will likely have for a long, dark while, and she fully intends to make sure it's finished before her daughter grows too big to wear it. "I was hoping to send it out this afternoon."

"To who?" _Whom_.

"A... friend. I think he might be able to help with..." Lucy clears her throat and ties off a careful knot at the end of her thread, plunging it into the silk and pulling it tight. "... with our situation."

"With Ben, you mean."

She takes an unsteady breath through her nose. "Yes. With Ben."

Nellie stomps into the room, her heavy boots shaking the floor. "That's a load of-"

Lucy looks up at her, frowning.

"- hogwash," Nellie finishes, but she slams the envelope onto the table beside Lucy. "What're you up to?"

Lucy stabs the needle through the silk again, nearly driving it into her fingertip. "Must you constantly pry? It's really none of your business."

Nellie throws her head back and laughs. "You're livin' in my 'ouse, love. It's my business when I say it is."

Lucy looks up, dropping her sewing to rest a hand over the letter. "If you must know, I'm accepting an invitation to a dinner party. The judge who presided at the trial invited me to talk about getting the charges lightened. We might not be able to get Ben back right away, but perhaps in a year or two. Five or six, at the very most."

Nellie's eyebrows rise until they sit only slightly lower than her tangled mess of hair. "Really. Judge Turpin invited you to a dinner party."

"Yes."

Nellie stares at her. "Hogwash," she says again, though the look on her face suggests she'd much rather say something else.

"It is not!"

"One, 'e's a bloody liar and a crook. And two, 'e doesn't 'old _dinner_ parties."

Lucy scowls. She stands, placing the sewing carefully behind her on the armchair. She leaves the needle in the silk and secretly hopes Nellie might sit on it. "Fine, so what if it's a few hours after dinner. There will be other people there... and I'm a married woman, I don't exactly need a chaperone anymore. I don't see you heading off to the market –or wherever it is you go – with a nanny or a nagging landlady dogging your every step."

"You're a blithering idiot, Lucy Barker," Nellie says. "I could go to the marketplace in the dead of night and I'd still 'ave a better chance of coming 'ome conscious than a woman alone at one of Turpin's parties. Surely you've 'eard the tales."

"The tales also said my husband was a murderer and a thief. Forgive me if I don't put much stock into them."

Nellie's eyes narrow. "You're not bringing 'im back, Lucy. I 'ope you know that. And if 'e ever does make it 'ome, it's not going to be because of anything you did, or any letters you wrote, or any parties you graced with your royal presence."

Lucy's stomach tightens, and she places her fingertips on the letter, pinning it down. "Maybe not, but I have to try."

Nellie huffs, blowing a curl out of her face and tossing her head like an impatient horse. She stomps around the room, and snatches the letter from the table, pulling it from under Lucy's hand. She shakes it in her fist, inches from Lucy's face. "Try, then. Do what you 'ave to do. Sell your body, sign your soul away on contract to Satan 'imself, write a letter to Turpin... I don't care, so long as you don't come cryin' to me in fifteen years when your husband comes back to find you with nothing but a sullied reputation and an 'eadfull of bloody bad memories."

Lucy narrows her eyes, "If I come home crying, I can assure it won't be to you."

Giving a disgusted look at Lucy's handwriting scrawled across the front of the envelope, Nellie crumples the letter into a tight ball, throwing it into the dusty corner. "And next time, _Mrs. Barker_, buy your own paper. I'm not a bloody charity."

The slamming door rattles the window and sets Johanna wailing like a banshee.

* * *

**A/N:** Hopefully you enjoyed this. This particular fanfic will just be a collection of drabbles and oneshots I wrote in the ST genre, in no particular order and with no particular theme. Some of them were based on songs, and some were prompts, and some were just... written. But hopefully you'll get something out of them and keep reading. Right now I have 5 written, so you're guaranteed that many, at least. I won't wait too long between updates until they're all posted, and after that... you get them as I write them, I guess.

Thanks loads for reading.


	2. Mediocrity

**2**

Looking back on her days with Albert, she remembered little more than mediocrity. Little more than steady, unsurprising, unexciting monotony. Never too happy, never too sad. Never smothered or pursued at a run – only doggedly chased with a lumbering walk, which soon after became a limp from the gout. There was some love, some fondness - but never more than a brief glimpse of the fiery passion she always associated with the dark haired barber upstairs. Perhaps that was her fault, as much as it was his.

More, if she decides to tell the truth (which she rarely does).

But Albert kept all his promises, perhaps in part because he never promised things he couldn't keep. Like Benjamin, promising his family he'd never leave them, promising he'd keep Lucy safe, always, and that their little family would grow old together in a country farmhouse. Promising them the world.

Albert never pretended to be something he wasn't. He wasn't Benjamin, and he never tried. But he pulled her up off the floor and put the bottle of the gin back in the cupboard every time he needed her to, carrying her to bed more than once, even when his leg was little more than a useless stump and he could hardly lift his own bulk from his chair. He never repeated any gossip, never believed it even if it was true.

She would scream and rage at him, cursing his insufferable presence that haunted every aspect of her life. But when she woke up with her sheets stained with blood, another child never to see the sun or breathe the dank London air, he was there for her. And when Benjamin walked onto the ship, a leaky looking boat more fit for cattle than men, Albert stood beside her. And after the burglars broke into the shop for the second time, it was Albert who waited outside their room all night with a pistol in his lap to make sure they never got past the kitchen.

He never promised her the world. But he promised to always be there for her, to pick her up if she fell and be there whenever she needed him. And he was.

She learned how difficult it was to stand on her own, without his broad shoulders to use as a crutch, but only after he was gone. Because he never promised her he wouldn't die.

* * *

**A/N:** Here's the second one. ^^ Thanks to everyone who reviewed, and I hope you enjoy.


	3. Drinking Games

**3**

She doesn't _need_ a husband. She'd gotten along just fine before he came along. Of course, it is nice to be guaranteed a bed every night, even if he does take up most of it. It's nice to have a meal, even if she has to cook it, and to not be worried whether there'd be anything left after a long day at the factory. It's nice to be anywhere her parents and siblings aren't, and to have a place to call her own. She doesn't need a husband, but she's not going to complain.

She doesn't need to drink. It's not like she'll die without it. She would go hours, days, weeks without a decent sip of gin, when even a decent sip of gin was more than she could afford – but she can afford it. So why bloody not? She doesn't mind having a swig or two throughout the day, a tumbler or two at night. If she doesn't take too much, it keeps her wits sharp and her body relaxed. And if she does… well, she deserves a little fun one time or another. It's all harmless. She doesn't need to drink, but she likes it. And lately, her fingers tremble if she doesn't.

And of all the things she doesn't need, Ben Barker is certainly the worst. Even if she could afford to spend hours daydreaming, if there were no floors to clean or pies to bake or customers to tend, she wouldn't need to spend those hours daydreaming of him. Not when she has a perfectly good husband. Not when she has a bottle between her teeth to keep her company on the nights Albert's too tired to even rise from his chair. She doesn't need to spend her nights tossing and turning and fretting over his perfect black hair and chocolate eyes, or the way he smiles when she offers him a drink at ten in the morning. Or the way his long fingers grasp the glass on the rare occasions he accepts her offer. She can live without him. She did before she met him. She can be happy without him.

She doesn't need the heartache.

* * *

**A/N:** Happy Valentines Day everyone! Hope you got to spend it with the ones you love/like/marginally appreciate. xD

This was based on the song Drinking Games, by Library Voices. It's a fun song. Check it out.

And Thanks for reading. Hope you liked it, and a huge thanks to everyone who reviewed. ^^ I will get to replying to them... eventually. -shifty eyes- By that time you may have forgotten what you said, but for now know that you brighten my day when you fill up my inbox.


	4. Dirt

**4**

James Patterson woke on the floor, flat on his stomach with his hands lashed behind his back with the rope he once used as a belt. He grunted and twitched, coughing at the pain in his side. Broken ribs.

A shadow in the corner scratched out a deep hole, using only its hands and a makeshift shovel fashioned from a tin plate and a stolen table leg. The shadow paused, cocking its head as if to listen, and rose slowly to its feet. It stepped into the pool of moonlight peeking through the cracked roof of the hut.

James began to squirm, rolling from his stomach onto his side, and craned his neck to look upward. "Benjamin," he gasped, throat raw and breathing shallow. "Thank God it's you – untie me."

Benjamin smiled. Covered in red Australian dirt that clung to his clothes, his hands, and the lines of his face like dried blood, he looked more like a snake than a man. Not at all like the barber James had spent the last two years chained behind in the quarries.

"Are you going to untie me or what?"

Another smile. James's blood ran cold.

"You gonna kill me, then?"

"Not right away." Benjamin glanced at the hole. "It's not deep enough, yet."

James's eyes widened. "You sick-"

"I'm sick?" His dark eyes flashed, and all of the sudden he was down on his knees, face pressed close enough for James to smell sweat and dirt mixed on his face. "I've heard you talking about Lucy. I've heard every filthy word you've said, every single syllable you muttered behind my back. Talking about all the obscene things you'd like to do to her – with your own hands, you said – for years, when you thought I couldn't hear. When you thought I couldn't do anything."

James tried to scramble back, but the effort lanced pain into his side and left him gasping. "I'll scream. I swear I'll scream, and the guards will come -"

"It won't matter," he said. He picked a handful of dirt from his small pile and held it over James' head, letting the soil slowly fall onto his face, into his eyes and nose. "Everyone screams here."

* * *

**A/N**: So this was a bit different from the last ones, eh? - yes, I said 'eh'. xD

Anyway, this was actually written around Halloween, but I didn't really feel like posting it, so you get it at the end of February instead. Works for me if it works for you. xD This was written mostly because I thought it would be interesting to explore a moment where Benjamin Barker really cracked - kind of the point of no return. I'm not saying this is necessarily how I envision it in canon, or even most AUs, but it went along with the song I was listening to (Dirt Room - Blue October) and... yeah.

Thanks for reading and reviewing! Hope you like it.


	5. Waste

**5**

He was certain there had never before been such a waste of paper.

It was drivel. Scrawls of misshapen letters interspersed with disproportionate pictograms. Fairy princesses and an orphan girl locked in prison, only to be rescued by a blonde angel and a man that looked far too much like the father she could not possibly remember. It was the poor quality of the writing that turned his stomach, he was sure. Drivel and blatant ingratitude.

Stifling a snort of derision, the judge drained the last of his wine and threw the manuscript into the fire, turning back to the overdue paperwork on his desk.

When eight-year old Johanna walked in the room to bid him goodnight and found his birthday present curling, blackening, disintegrating, she knew exactly how much her father loved her.

xxxx

She was certain there had never before been such a waste of time. She might as well try to cross the Alps on a pack mule. Wearing nothing but a nightgown. And the pack mule would be blind. And deaf. And have no legs. And it would be winter. Because she was more likely to wind up in Switzerland with a big 'ol grin on her face than ever, _ever_ compete with Lucy in Mr. Todd's mind.

But that didn't mean she wasn't going to try.

xxxx

He was certain there had never before been such a waste of beauty.

Watching her bustle around the kitchen, slathered in honey, soot, and flour, was like seeing a string of pearls lying in the muddy banks of the Thames. When she would push her hair out of her face and smear jam across her forehead and into her fiery locks, he would see a wine stain on a wedding dress. She would sing a sailor's drinking song with a voice like an angel, and he would hear Mozart on an out of tune violin.

He longed to peel back the layers of mud and indifference, to comb her hair and clean her dress and wash her skin until it shone. He wished to find the beauty she held close to her more-than-ample chest like a court secret.

But in the end, he chose the polished gem, the flawless, transparent diamond, and there were no surprises.

* * *

**A/N:** Well, this is the last one. For now, at least. I don't have any more written in advance, so unless the oneshot bug bites me, we'll call this complete. Which isn't to say it'll stay that way forever, but it won't be regularly updated. However, I hope this went out with a bang. It's a tri-drabble, at least, which is kind of fun. xD And it's my personal favourite, which is why I saved it for last.

it was based on the writing prompt given to me by my friend Haley: "He/she was certain there had never before been such a waste of (insert word here)." and this is what happened.

Anyway, thanks for reading and reviewing! I really appreciate it. Also, I'm kind of gauging some interest here - so if you guys wouldn't mind giving me a yea or a nay, it might be helpful.

I do have a little storehouse of writing left over, but most of it is alternate universe and/or Nellie/OC. (in particular, Freddie from my fic ITDBY.) It's a fun little pairing I've been playing around with for a while and it's grown into its own universe - so I guess the question is, would any of you be interested in reading some Nellie/Freddie or AU drabbles/oneshots? Or would that be better left between me, myself, I, and the four or five fans the pairing has already? haha. Let me know. If people seem interested, I'll post it. If they don't... well, I might post it anyway. We'll see. xD But I'll be more likely if there's any interest.

Alrighty. Thank again for the reviews! Peace out. ^^


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